![]() Thompson: The next conversation obviously was going to be: Where are we going to shoot this? There are summer camps all over the country obviously, but we needed to find a place where the kids were going to be there for a longer period of time so that we could tell their stories over an arc of 22 episodes or however many episodes we shot. Ross: It was the first big real series that we had sold that was completely ours and it was one of the rare times in my career that I sold a show on a one-line pitch in the first meeting. Rupert Thompson (co-creator): Doug came back from his meeting with Ross at Disney saying that he sold the show in the room because Rich and Doug were talking about their camp days when they were kids, and Doug apparently said, "Well why don’t we do a documentary-style show about kids at a summer camp." And it was just kind of one of those obvious ideas that had to be made into a show. I had the opportunity in the late fall of 1996 to sit down with the newly installed head of the Disney Channel at the time, a guy named Rich Ross. But as I became a TV producer, I was thinking about the real life situations that are so ripe for turning into a documentary soap opera… and it was very clear to me that the summer camp experience was perfect for a TV show. I always had very fond memories of my camp experience. The series chronicled all the iconic moments in the summer camp canon: the tribulations of sneaking candy into your cabin, the struggles of finding unity as a bunk, the camp-wide theater production, the bushwhacking and canoeing trips, and of course, the tearful goodbye that caps off the summer.Īhead of the revival, we talked to seven people involved in the original series-from the creators to the counselors to the campers-about the making of the Disney reality show, and what didn’t make it on screen.ĭouglas Ross (co-creator): I had been a summer camper when I was growing up in Colorado. Then there was Asa, whose quest to earn respect as the youngest in his bunk came with its own challenges, and his sister Anna, who was fueled by outdoor adventure as much as camp gossip. We saw Malik, a Brooklyn kid, conquer his fears on a waterski, and Caitlin, a young artist, overcome her homesickness. We watched lovebirds Connor and Stephanie navigate a budding romance. ![]() Unlike the reality shows before it, Bug Juice swapped the booze-fueled debauchery of The Real World for authentic first-time-away-from-home drama, from homesickness to first kisses. ![]() The series described itself as “the true life adventures of kids at summer camp,” and it welcomed viewers to Maine’s Camp Waziyatah, following two bunks of campers-one boys’ cabin, and one girls’-over the course of a summer. ![]()
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